How can outsourced live chat agents answer questions about your business? With three things: a clear goal for the chat, a knowledge base about your business and training on your website and tone of voice. With those, an external chat specialist answers most questions straight away and passes on the rest to your own team, with the full conversation attached.
It is the most common concern when businesses consider outsourcing live chat: how can someone outside the company know enough about our products? Below you will read how that works in practice.
Step 1: a clear goal for the chat
Everything starts with the question of what the chat should deliver. Do you mainly want to inform visitors as fully as possible about your services? Or do you want to turn as many conversations as possible into enquiries, appointments or test drives?
That goal determines how the chat specialist conducts the conversation. With a service goal, the emphasis is on a fast and complete answer. With a sales goal, the chat specialist also asks follow-up questions: what is the visitor looking for, when do they want to buy and how can your team reach them? How a chat becomes a lead that way is covered in leads from live chat.
Step 2: a knowledge base about your business
The knowledge base is the chat specialist’s guide. It contains the information needed to answer questions:
- Your range. Products, services, versions, prices and lead times.
- Practical information. Opening hours, locations, delivery and procedures.
- Situations. What to do with a complaint, a question about an order or a request for advice.
- Standard answers. Sample sentences for frequently asked questions, written in your tone of voice, so answers are fast and consistent.
For each situation there is a fixed approach: which questions the chat specialist asks, which answer fits and when the conversation goes to your own team. The knowledge base also sets the communication style, for example how formal or informal you are with visitors.
Step 3: training on your website and tone of voice
A good knowledge base is only useful if the chat specialist knows how to work with it. That is why every chat specialist is trained before they start chatting for you. The training covers:
- Your website. Where which information is, so the chat specialist can point visitors to the right page straight away.
- Your business. What you stand for, what your goals are for the chat and what to pay attention to.
- Conversation skills. How to say no politely, how to keep a conversation going and how to steer towards a next step.
After go-live, the knowledge base keeps growing. New questions that come up in conversations are added, so the chat gets better every week.
How many questions can an external chat specialist answer?
With a full knowledge base, an external chat specialist can answer the large majority of questions straight away. Most questions visitors ask are about information that is already on your website or in the knowledge base.
Why use a chat specialist if the information is already on the website? Because visitors rarely take the time to search for it. The chat specialist knows exactly where the information is, has extra knowledge from the knowledge base and helps the visitor on their way within seconds.
More and more often, AI handles the simplest questions first, such as opening hours or the status of an appointment. The chat specialist takes over when a question calls for explanation, advice or a next step.
What does a chat specialist do if they do not know the answer?
Some questions are so specific that only your own team can answer them, such as a detailed technical question or a request for a tailored price. In that case the chat specialist does not make up an answer, but:
- Collects the details. What exactly is the question, and how can your team reach the visitor?
- Passes on the conversation. The enquiry goes to your sales team or support system, with the full transcript.
- Keeps the visitor informed. The visitor knows who will get back to them and roughly when.
That way you do not lose any visitors, even when the chat specialist cannot help them further. And your specialist already knows what the visitor wants before they get in touch.
From anonymous visitor to lead
With thorough training and a full knowledge base, chat specialists can steer the conversation in the right direction. First, they help the visitor quickly with a targeted answer. Then they ask about the next step. That way an anonymous visitor quickly becomes a person with a name, a question and contact details whom your team can follow up.
At Bconnect we set up the knowledge base together with the client and keep it up to date with what we learn from the conversations. Every lead reaches the client with the transcript, so the sales team knows exactly where to pick up the conversation. What else live chat delivers is covered in the benefits of live chat.
An external chat specialist knows your business through preparation
An external chat specialist does not need to work at your company to answer questions about it. A clear goal, a full knowledge base and good training are enough to answer most questions straight away and pass on the rest neatly. If you want to see what that looks like for your website, read more about live chat outsourcing.
Frequently asked questions about outsourced live chat agents
How can an external chat specialist answer questions about my business?
With a clear goal for the chat, a knowledge base about your business and training on your website and tone of voice. With those, the chat specialist answers most questions straight away and passes on the rest to your own team.
How many questions can an external chat specialist answer?
With a full knowledge base, the large majority. Most questions visitors ask are about information that is already on the website or in the knowledge base. Specific questions go to your own team.
What does a chat specialist do if they do not know the answer?
They do not make up an answer. They collect the visitor’s details and question and pass the conversation on to your team with the full transcript, so nobody is lost and your team can respond straight away.
How long does it take before an external chat specialist is up to speed?
Usually a few weeks, depending on how much information there is about your range and which systems need to be connected. The knowledge base keeps growing after go-live.
Does the chat specialist use our tone of voice?
Yes. The knowledge base and the training include how formal or informal you are with visitors and which words you use, so the chat sounds like your business.